Operationalizing ‘Policy Capacity’: A Case Study of Climate Change Adaptation in Canadian Finance Agencies

Abstract

Although a widely used term in the literature, much of what we know about “policy capacity” in government is limited to anecdotal evidence. Policy scholars have not systematically investigated the ability of policy professionals to provide good advice in relation to new policy challenges; indeed many are skeptical that policy capacity (understood as the potential for “evidence based policy learning”) is an important driver of policy change in the first place. Despite these empirical and theoretical problems, governments remain committed to improving policy capacity in the pursuit of better public policy. This paper offers some preliminary observations on the difficulty of studying and operationalizing policy capacity through an examination of the finance sector in relation to climate change adaptation; part of a large collaborative SSHRC CEI project. Drawing on the existing literature on Canadian finance policymaking dynamics, a survey of policy professionals in the area, and an illustrative case study, the paper makes two claims. It suggests that viewing capacity as involving both the cognitive skills of professionals (or “analytical capacity”), and the institutional arrangements in which policy research is conducted (or “governance arrangements”), is a useful starting point. However, as the findings in this paper highlight, if capacity is the ability to provide effective advice in relation to specific problems, then the nature of the problem itself (how “wicked” or otherwise it might be) will also impact capacity.